Tennis psychology is the same as understanding the make-up of your opponent’s mind and gauging the effect of your own game on his/her head and also understanding the psychological effects resulting from the different external causes on your own mind.
However, it is true that you cannot be a successful psychologist of others without first understanding your own mental processes. Therefore, you must study the effect on yourself of the same thing happening under different circumstances. This is because people react differently in different moods and under different circumstances.
You must understand the effect on your game of the resulting irritation, pleasure, confusion, or whatever other form your reaction is. Does it increase your efficiency? If so, go for it, but never give it to your opponent. Does it rob you of concentration? If so, either remove the cause, or if that is not possible, try to ignore it.
Once you have accurately measured your own reaction to conditions, observe your opponents in order to decide their characters. Like temperaments react similarly, and you may judge men of your own sort by yourself. Other characters you must seek to compare with people whose reactions you know.
Someone who can control his/her own mental processes runs an excellent chance of reading those of another for the mind works along definite lines of thought and can be studied. One can only control one’s own mental processes after carefully examining them.
A steady, phlegmatic baseline player is rarely a keen thinker. If he was he would not stay on the baseline. The physical appearance of a player is usually a pretty clear indication of his/her sort of mind. The stolid, easy-going player, who usually advocates the baseline game, does so because he hates to stir up his/her torpid mind to work out a safe strategy of reaching the net.
Then there is the other type of baseline player, who would rather remain on the back of the court while directing an attack intending to disrupt up your game. He is a much more dangerous player, and a deep, keen thinking antagonist. He achieves his/her results by mixing up his/her length and direction and worrying you with the variance of his/her game. He is a good psychologist.
The first type of player mentioned above simply hits the ball with little idea of what he is actually doing, while the latter always has a definite strategy and sticks to it.
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